It looks like probably Dominik's suggestion of the -e cleared the
program. So somehow, rpm -e packagename seemed to be the magic bullet.
I will start overwith the update to make sure all the packages
downloaded, and let you know if success happens.

FWIW, I had several file conflicts resulting from standard F24 packages
that blocked the upgrade to F25.

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that required dnf erase <offendingpackage>. Sometimes these erasures
had a slightly worrying amount of dependencies (a dozen, not hundreds,
though), and in each case they reinstalled smoothly after the OS
upgrade. Two of those have been promptly fixed by the packagers, and
apparently are no longer an isssue.

This got me thinking if there's a common root cause that could be
checked automatically? I didn't quite understand what exactly happened
in the affected packages to cause it.